Red Shift #2

Red Shift #2

Scout Comics 2021

Written by H.S. Tak

Illustrated by Brent McKee

Coloured by Sebastian Cheng

Lettered by Joel Rodriguez

Dear Citizen, please join us in Heroes Square for our Sixth Launch day. Bid farewell to our Voyager who will cross into deep space on a mission that carries our collective hopes and dreams. Your attendance is encouraged and mandatory.

It has to suck knowing that was once your dream died when your mother never came back from her voyage. Nerves, being scared or terrified are something that we all face at the crossroads of our biggest choices and we have to live with the consequences of our actions and decisions. The measure of a man isn’t how he handles a situation, it's how he handles himself when dealing with the aftermath. So how is Hellener handling things? For the answer you’ll have to read the story but what I really like about what we see here is that nothing is cut and dry or black & white oh no there are so many shades of gray. This makes him so much more relatable to, to be able to empathise with and in a lot ways root for. It is exceptionally well rendered and given the chance would he turn them down again?

I am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceedingly well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter is exceptionally well portrayed. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story and as we get deeper into this the deeper we are pulled in as well.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen is extremely well done. The layers contain the bulk of the characterisation which does an exceptional job bringing their personalities to the forefront, the plot twists and side hustles. What all these do is open up various avenues of which some will be explored and others won’t be but everything we see adds this wonderful depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are absolutely gorgeous. The linework is sensational and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail within the work throughout is exceptionally well rendered. I do wish we’d see more backgrounds being utilsied to enhance and expand the moments but what we do see works fairly well. We do see some nice use within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great understanding of how colour works.

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This is a great little book though let’s be honest why send only one person at a time per trip? I know these are exploratory missions to find a suitable planet to relocate the general populace but it would still make more sense to send a team to me, but what do I know? Still this goes to show just how engaged I am in the story that I am willing to go on that tangent. The writing really is that good and the characterisation is strong while the interiors here are bloody gorgeous. All in all this is a great solid story and I cannot wait to see where things are going to go next.